I will never kill Iraqi innocents,
support pre-emptive violence,
submit to unjust government.
I did not elect George Bush as president
For I’m in the Lord’s army (Yes sir!)

I’m in the Lord’s army (Yes sir!)
I’m in the Lord’s army (Yes sir!)

I will never kill Iraqi innocents,
support pre-emptive violence,
submit to unjust government.
I did not elect George Bush as president
For I’m in the Lord’s army (Yes sir!)

What is it good for?

"[I]t is fair to say that the vast majority of Christians are pacifist in an important sense: most Christians today and through history presume against violence. The just war theory as put forward by its leading interpreters places the burden of doubt on those who resort to violence" (Clapp 111).

Rodney Clapp, in his book A Peculiar People, makes this profound statement about the history of the Church's stance on war, but I'm not sure it's entirely accurate. Do most Christians today presume against violence? I hope so, but that hasn't been my experience.

When I suggest, whether on this blog or at the Christian college I attended, that war is not acceptable for Christians, many Christians accuse me of cowardice instead of the sympathetic understanding that the Church desires peace.

Considerations of what makes a war just seem to be absent from the reasoning of most non-pacifist Christians I've encountered. If I cannot convince them from Scripture that war is wrong in all circumstances (which I cannot and will not attempt to do), then they will whole-heartedly back any war that the United States declares (especially if a Republican is the current president).

So I'm interested to hear from those who do not consider themselves pacifists, what are the criteria for a just war? Must we accept war as a matter of course, or are there unjust wars that we should oppose? I fear that many will not think beyond, "Unjust war is when the US is attacked; just war is when it attack others." Please try.

Clapp, Rodney. A Peculiar People: The Church As Culture in a Post-Christian Society. InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, 1996.

Sadly Insightful

Insightfully Sad?